


blood on the coliseum floor

by postcardmystery



Category: Historical RPF, Rome
Genre: Blood, Gen, Murder, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:11:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no god, for he is just a humble man of his city. There is no blood, except his own, to this tenet he holds true. This story has no beginning, and it has no end. That is how you hold onto power. That is what you must create.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood on the coliseum floor

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for blood, war and murder.

i.

 

This story has no beginning. There is no focal point. There is blood on the Senate floor, and an asp wrapped, like a sceptre, around a pale, pale thigh. There is a father who was no father, and the blood of the father that flows to the son like the Tiber’s rivers. There is blood, for all of this is blood, but it is never his own, except in speeches. There is no father, for a god has no father, but a son of a god, he does. There is no god, for he is just a humble man of his city. There is no blood, except his own, to this tenet he holds true. This story has no beginning, and it has no end. That is how you hold onto power. That is what you must create.

He is Octavian Caesar, and he does not watch history being made. He is Octavian Caesar, and he will not make history. He is Octavian Caesar, he whom they will call August, the God Son, the Father of Rome. He is Octavian Caesar, Imperator, cleverest of cleverest men, cunning hid behind a smile like snake. He is Octavian Caesar, the last of his name, and, more importantly, also the first.

He is Octavian Caesar, and he does not make history. He _is_ it.

 

 

“Put down your books,” says his mother, shining flint behind her eyes that his father never had, and he does, he does, but do not think he does not learn from them, never ever doubt it.

 

 

Fifteen and he kills a man, because the man beat him, because the man made him less, because he _can_. Blood is flecked across the bridge of his nose and sodden in his golden hair, and he is not yet a man, but he knows what war is, knows a truth he takes inside his chest and holds, holds, unsheathes from himself like a sword when the time is right.

 

 

Nineteen and his Uncle dies on the Senate floor, a not-brother’s hand on the handle of the knife and his world ends and begins anew. Beneath their feet the floor shakes, and he finds that he alone stands still. His mother clamps her claws into Antony, and then he does not stand alone. In the East, murderers run from him, although they do not yet know it, and if the world does not know his name it shall not take long, now.

 

 

“My darling boy,” says his mother, and he meets her eyes, knows he is what his mother made of him, and, if he cannot be grateful, it is only because the Julii own their own victories, make their own wars.

 

 

ii.

 

His ancestry hangs heavy in his chest, like a stone. His blood is Junii, centuries old and spilled across the hills of Rome like the press of a ring into wax. His skin is covered in invisible ink, the legacy of the Junii written over every part of him like the constellations of the heavens, with all the dots joined up wrong; or so his mother tells him. Fate hangs heavy around his neck, too, for the Junii were made, not born, but bore the very Republic itself in the fires of their forging. The Junii were made, not born, but that was a long time ago, and many things have changed since then. His mother whispers to him at night stories of kings, and they are not happy stories. Kings do not have honour. Kings cannot confer freedom. No Junii shall bow their knee to a king, not ever.

His mother says the Junii were made, not born. Marcus Junius Brutus does not have a soldier’s hands, and he does not feel fire-forged or battle-ready. This, he knows, is the dawn of a new age, and if the Junii are made, then he has a very long way to go.

“Do not listen to your mother,” says the voice he’s trusted since he was three years old, “The Junii are born, the way all families are.”

“If you do say so, Caesar,” says Brutus, and his uncle-who-is-not-an-uncle smiles.

He does not ask such a question of the Julii. That is a question no one has ever had to ask. You could not make a Julii. You could not even _try_.

 

 

Brutus is young, but he is not so young as all that. He is still young, in his mother’s eyes, but he is many things to his mother that he never is to any other living person. She is the warrior and he is the statesman, if he is even that-- but a hand on his arm, the whisper of _my friend_ , and Cassius sees him clean and clear, laughs with him and loves with him and he feels that fire in his chest, knows that democracy will out.

“He’s just a child,” he says, of the boy-king who is not yet a boy-king, when Cassius speaks of righteous murder, and he wishes, in his later years, that he could say that it was the only thing to return to haunt him.

 

 

There’s Julii blood on the floor and Junii blood in his veins and _thus always for tyrants_ , but look left, look left-- but nobody does.

 

 

“Outmaneuvered by a child,” says Cassius, and Brutus digs his fingers into the back of his friend’s neck, does not whisper, _I do very much doubt anyone has ever been able to call him that, my friend_.

“What now?” he says, and Cassius, good man that he is, meets his eyes although they both know there is no answer.

 

 

“He will watch us die and laugh,” says Cassius, hand shielding his face from the glare of the sun, and Brutus squints up to where the heir of Caesar surely watches them, kisses Cassius’s mouth, says, “Then let’s give him one hell of a show.”

 

 

iii.

 

Antony’s hand is clasped about his own, but there’s a liemaker at his back, and a general, too, and Octavian Caesar, the first and last of his name, does not bend his knee, meets his equal, plots and plans and waits for someone else’s world to shake.

 

 

“You are the very worst of us all,” says Antony, hair almost red in the firelight and on the deep, true red of his tunic.

“Well,” says Octavian, mildly, scratching off another name which will cease to be of use to anyone in three short days, “If anyone would know.”

 

 

He was the only one to ever measure him exactly, the only one apart from those of his own blood to recognise what coiled inside a child who said he knew nothing of war and less of political gamesmanship. He pays him back in kind, meets him as the only enemy who’s ever matched him, and knows that Antony probably regrets being so very astute, now the time has come for the all-or-nothing toss of the die. Oh, well. He’s myth born of myth, and this board is his to take and sell and smash in equal measure. _Alea iacta est_.

 

 

“They say that Alexander fell to his knees and wept when there were no more lands left to conquer,” says Agrippa, and Maecenas huffs out a small laugh, for once says nothing.

“I am no Alexander,” says Octavian, flames from a thousand torches reflected in his eyes, “And my empire will not be torn apart by my jealous generals.”

“Of course it won’t,” says Agrippa, his voice thick with sincerity, and Maecenas grins, says, “I don’t have a head for ruling, my friend, you know that better than anyone.”

“Very true,” says Octavian, “And I have no head for war. Are you ready to win me my empire, Agrippa?”

“Always,” says Agrippa, and Octavian kisses his forehead, says, close and quiet, “I want to see Alexandria in ruins.”

“Give me my orders,” says Agrippa, the way he always does, and those fires in their ships are not the only things that are scorched and furious as Octavian says, “Burn it all.”

“As you command,” says Agrippa, as Maecenas pulls Octavian back into their tent, and, beneath them, morning sunlight ripples over the waves of the Ionia Sea.

 

 

He does not seek to burn the world, merely Alexandria. Empires fractured are difficult to rule, and cities left as dust and ash do not send tribute. He does not seek to possess, for everything he wants belongs to Rome already. He, as he is so fond of saying, _is_ Rome. He is just a man, and a man of the people, if he can swing it. (And, oh, he _can_.) He read Plato at seven and Aristotle at eight. Power is power is power, and if he is not a king he was born of a queen, regardless. He was a child until he wasn’t, a pawn until he stood on the senate floor and owned it like the senators, in turn, were children. He was a man until he was a god, and a god until he was a city. Perhaps only Rome is history, but look left, look left, and whose name do you see?


End file.
